I forgot my MOTU password, but I plugged-in the iLOK USB security dongle that has the license for MachFive 3; and MOTU sent me a password reset email. . .

Like RealiTone, MOTU has implemented a new customer management system, but I remembered my old user name, which probably helped . . .

I tried installing the latest MachFive 3 upgrade (v3.2.1), but macOS Catalina did not like it; so as I did with ScreenFlow (Telestream), I tried the previous version of MachFive 3 (v3.1.4) and it did not upset macOS Catalina . . .

Why would macOS Catalina not like new applications but have no problems with older versions?

Perhaps there is a "State Farm" list, where application versions on the list are considered automagially to be "Good Neighbors"?

MachFive 3.1.4 is woking nicely; and I downloaded all the soundbanks, which I did while enjoying Church's fried chicken, mashed potatoes, and gravy but no fried okra . . .

They are out of fried okra until Monday . . .

I'm probably going to take a break, since all the clicking, double-clicking, ,and moving the mouse from place to place to do the downloads and installs is a bit exhausting, as well as being completely and totally boring; but it has to be done, so I did it . . .

While doing a bit of research at the MOTU website, I discovered the "legacy" MOTU 828m3 Hybrid external digita audio and MIDI interface here in the sound isolation studio has a USB port and apparently works in macOS Catalina; so this is yet another experiment to do, and if it works I can use my regular microphones, elelectric guitars, KORG Triton Music Workstation (88 weighted piano-style keys) and all that stuff with the 2012 MacBook Pro . . .

Sometime last year when I was in a strange mood, I wrote lyrics for what probably will be a Country Western/Heavy Metal song about an ex-convict, "The Ballad of Darryl Dupree";who against all logic embarks on a new crime spree; so I might record it once all this stuff is working . . .

It's inspired in part by Johnny Cash, so it night be interesting . . .

The lyrics are either (a) on a 3x5 notecard in my wallet or (b) in a text file on the primary hard drive of the non-working Mac Pro (Early 2008), the latter of which might be accessible if I pull it and insert it into the still unboxed external USB hard drive caddy or dock . . .

I also plan to remove all the empty cardboard shipping boxes in the living room, which were from the time when I went temporarily insane and ordered thousands of dollars of aluminum Guardian Serviceware and aluminum waiter serving trays from eBay . . .

Can you ever have too many 36" oval aluminum serving trays?

It's good stuff; and the serving trays are great when you are barbecuing several racks of pork ribs; so I'm glad I got them, but really . . .

In retrospect, I should have purchased an iMac, but I was young and had no sense . . .

Lots of FUN!

P. S. No word yet on the password reset from UVI, which I need to download my licensed copy of Whoosh FX . . .

]]>2020-06-06T18:27:43-06:002020-06-06T18:27:43-06:00https://forums.presonus.com/viewtopic.php?t=39908&p=233600#p233600Assuming that you're using the desktop version, the easy way is to load Kontakt as a VST instrument in Notion. The MIDI routing is then internal and "under the hood." No special routing or any other settings required.

But I may be missing something in terms of what you're trying to accomplish...

I upgraded to Reason 11.3 (Reason Studios) to see how it works in macOS Catalina 10.15.4 . . .

No response yet from Sugar Bytes and UVI to change passwords; but Cyclop (Sugar Bytes) is included in EWQL ComposerCloud X, so that's the way I installed Cyclop (very easy) . . .

After doing some research, it appears Whoosh FX (UVI) is on my iLOK USB security dongle, so in a while I plan to unplug it from the non-working MacPro (Early 2008) and the plug it into the 2012 MacBook Pro to see if I can install Whoosh FX using the iLOK Manager for which I know the account and password, which will be nice if it works . . .

I need to install MachFive 3 (MOTU), and I know it has a USB security dongle; so this might be easy to do . . .

And I need to install the XLN Audio products . . .

The 2012 MacBook Pro (13", Retina) has a 1TB SSD that I installed last year; but it's getting filled-up, so I am thinking about upgrading to a 2TB SSD from Other World Computing--easy to install, but I need to do a full bootable backup with SuperDuper! (Shirt Pocket) to one of the LaCie external hard drives here in the sound isolation studio . . .

Unless I am forgetting something, I think this will be everything I use for digital music production here in the sound isolation studio . . .

Last year, the primary hard drive on the Mac Pro (Early 2008) had problems, and for a while it was looking like a lot of key data was lost; but I ordered DiskWarrior (Alsoft) and was able to recover everything before replacing the hard drive with a new one . . .

During this time, I wrote a chap;ter on archiving strategies and added a few steps to my archiving system here in the sound isolation studio, whichI am hoping will be worthwhile when the replacement Mac Pro (Early 2008) arrives in about 10 days . . .

As you know, I started this project on macOS Catalina at the end of last year using a 2019 MacBook Pro (with T2 security processor) and the 2012 MacBook Pro, which doesn't have a controller, at all . . .

At present, I am doing everything on the 2012 MacBook Pro, and it's coming along nicely . . .

The primary things I learned when the hard drive failed and I used DiskWarrior to recover key data are (a) that AUi, VSTi, AU, and VST presets are stored all over the place and (b) if you don't have backup copies it's nearly impossible to recreate the presets . . .

In the current situation, I am learning there is another key set of information, which is the accounts, passwords, key codes, and so forth for all the AUi, VSTi, AU, and VST components and virtual instrument licenses . . .

Fortunately, I have been using two email accounts for probably a decade or longer, and all the emails are archived, which makes it possible to get everything onto the 2012 MacBook Pro . . .

Generally, I forgot all the passwords; but nearly all the products has links to reset passwords, which is what I have been doing, with good success . . .

Over the past 24 or so hours, I have upgraded to SampleTank 4 (IK Multimedia) at a greater than 50 percent discount, and have installed all my Native Instruments products but focused on Kontakt 6 rather than Kontakt 5, which took several hours to download and install, as did the new SampleTank 4 sounds , , ,

The SampleTank 4 sounds and SampleTank 3 sounds are downloaded manually are map to 40 or so sampled-sound libraries, which was so repetitive that I lost track of time and thought Friday was Saturday, but so what , , ,

Realivox Blue (RealiTone) was the trickiest component to get, and this was due to it being purchased in August 2015, which was a few years before RealiTone switched to a new customer management system . . .

I found the PayPal receipt and sent it to the RealiTone folks, and they found the information in the new system (started in 2019) and sent me the key codes and so forth, all within less than 6 hours fro the tine I emailed them with the support request, plus I forgot which email I used for the purchase; but they found it and sent me the licensing data , , ,

I did the same thing for my FabFilter Software Instruments instruments and effects plug-ins; so I'm nearly back in business on the 2012 MacBook Pro running macOS Catalina 10.15.4 . .. .

These are good companies, and they support their customers, which is important . . .

The next part of the plan is to get Cyclop (Sugar Bytes) and Whoosh (UVI) . . .

Curiously, Cyclop is included in the Native Instruments components, but I have a separate license for it--presuming I can find it . . .

Some of this would have been easier if I had all the licensing information for everything in one central location on a LaCie external hard drive; so this is another "lesson learned" the hard way . . .

On the other hand, I have a swappable, external hard drive "caddy" with a USB port; so I plan to do an experiment to determine whether I can use it to access the internal hard drives in the currently non-working Mac Pro (Early 2008) . . .

If this works, then I will have access to everything that was on the Mac Pro (Early 2008) .. .

Regardless, when a computer stops work, it's good to have an archiving and recovering strategy, which I think I do . . .

There are a few things I will do to make it easier, but for the most part it's coming along nicely . . .

Lots of FUN!

P. S. Kudos to the FabFilter Software Instruments, IK Multimedia, Native Instruments, RealiTone, and Telestream folks (a) for maintaining my customer information and licenses and (b) for responding quickly when I asked for help, which is fabulous . . .

The problem is caused by the Mac "Controller:, which is a "T1" or in new Macs a "T2" processor . . .

They had me check the "Controller" information for the 2012 MacBook Pro, and it doesn't have one . . .

They said v6 works, because it does the audio work via something called "KEXT", which has nothing to do with T1/T2 security controller chips . . .

[NOTE: I think "KEXT" is an acronym for "Kernel Extension" and is a UNIX thing. macOS runs atop UNIX, but I generally avoid delving into the UNIX level . . . ]

I told them I'm happy with v6; so they're happy that I'm happy, which is the way we left it for now . . .

This was all done via email, and as one might expect I could not resist the temptation to add an analogy, metaphor, simile, or allegory, which in this instance started by observing that I drive a 1987 Chevy Van--not because I can't afford a new car, but because it's very reliable; doesn't have a lot of stuff I don't need or want; and is easy to maintain and to repair . . .

I was going to observe that it has a steel frame, steel body, steel bumpers, and a class 3 trailer hitch (which connects to the rear bumper and to the frame); and while it does not have airbags, it benefits from the rules of Newtonian physics . . .

I shared a story about a friend who got a new truck and was very excited about the GPS navigation system, hence wanted to take me for a drive to show how it works . . .

We went for a drive, and the GPS Navigator voice provided excellent instructions for the route, which was great . . .

However, after a while i decided to introduce a bit of a reality and directed my friend to a large but empty parking lot where I instructed him to drive in circles . . .

After a few circles, the GPS Navigator voice said something like, "I'm confused. What are you doing? Whete are you?" . . .

It's a similar type of thing to being able to run an application from 2016 on a 2012 computer with a 2020 operating system which is supposed to prevent running applications that are not credentialed and all that stuff . . .

Drive around in enough circles, and the "technology" doesn't know what to do, because the software engineers who developed it never imagined someone would drive around in circles . . .

As noted, ScreenFlow is working for me, so that's good!

Today I received an email from IK Multimedia announcing a 35-percent discount on the SampleTank 4 upgrade, so I purchased it and used 38 of my Jam Points, which mapped to the price being $91 (US)--less than half the regular upgrade price . . .

Downloading all the sounds took about two hours, which was boring, but so what . . .

My Mac Pro (Early 2008) stopped working, but I have a replacement ordered, and sit should arrive by mid-June . . .

Until the replacement arrives, I am doing everything on the 2012 MacBook Pro, and it's working nicely, albeit with a few odd bits . . .

SCREENFLOW

Apparently, the new version of ScreenFlow (Telestream) does not record audio from Studio One Professional, NOTION, and several other Digital Audio Workstation (DAQ) applications in macOS Catalina 10.15.4; but I found a way to get it working . . .

The Telestream support information suggests that reverting to v7.3 makes it possible to use ScreenFlow (earlier version), but that doesn't work, either . . .

I have been using ScreenFlow for about a decade to make YouTube videos; so I installed v6; and it records audio but not the macOS Desktop . . .

In the experiments, I installed and then uninstalled v9 and v7 several times, which included allowing them to access the screen for recording; and this requires granting them permission in Security and Privacy, which I did, and that part worked, but no audio . . .

As far as I have determined, once you authorize an application to record the screen, the authorization stays in Security and Privacy forever, and you only can uncheck the option, which is what I did, but I also changed the name from "ScreenFlow.app" to "ScreenF.app" . . .

Once I realized v6 was recording audio, I decided to authorize it to record the screen; but in 2016 no such authorization was required (or perhaps existed); so I had the idea to authorize "ScreenF.app" anyuway; and this solved the problem of v6 recording the screen . . .

I write about this because it's a bit beyond strange and bizarre, as well as being somewhat hilarious . . .

Apple does all this super secutiry stuff in macOS Catalina, which breaks the new version of ScreenFlow for recording audio from Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) applications; but I can run ScreenFlow from 2016 with no problems once I authorized a non-existent older version of ScreenFlot (renamed to "ScreenF.app")?

The Telestream folks apparently do not know how to get the current version of ScreenFlow working in macOS Catalina . . .

For all the paranoid work Apple did to "protect" me, I have no problems running an application from 2016--four years before macOS Catalina existed . . .

The v6 video editing is not so sophisticated as the newer version, but it's sufficient for making the types of YouTube videos I do . . .

There is an important observation, which is that macOS Catalina is like NOTION in the sense that if you do a few perhaps wacky experiments, then it does stuff that most folks never would imagine it can do . . .

In other words, when something appears to be impossible to do in NOTION, if you do some experiments and "think outside the box", then there nearly always is a workaround or some way to do what you need to do . . .

It might not be the first way you imagine, but the perspective here in the sound isolation studio is focused on finding some way to do stuff, even when it's what initially appears to be an unusual way to do ti . . .

SAMPLETANK 4

As part of moving digital music production to the 2012 MacBook Pro for a while, I installed all the IK Multimedia software I use; and T-RackS 5 Custom Shop works, as does AmpliTube. . .

SampleTank does not work in Custom Shop, since it is an earlier version; but SampleTank 4 Custom Shop works by itself, which includes the VSTi version . . .

Being more precise, there is a combined Custom Shop interface where T-RackS 5 and AmpliTube work, but not SampleTank . . .

But this is OK, since the current, separate version of SampleTank 4 Custom Shop works by itself and as a VSTi virtual instrument in Studio One Professional and NOTION in macOS Catalina . . .

Additionally, the SampleTank 3 sounds work in SampleTank 4 Custom Shop, so after a lot of downloading sounds, everything is there (approximately 40GB for all the stuff, more or less) . . .

I have not tried the new version of Kontakt (Native Instruments), but with EWQL ComposerCloud X I have a virtual festival of instruments and sampled-sounds . . .

I need to get Kontakt installed so I can use Realivox Blue (RealiTone), my favorite virtual female soprano, which I will do soon . . .

And I upgraded to Melodyne Editor 5, which is working nicely in macOS Catalina . . .

I did a few experiments--the first of which was to export the audio stem for the Solo Violin in the aforementioned J. S. Bach fugue and then to run it through Melodyne Editor 5 and export it as MIDI, which I imported to NOTION . . .

Works wonderfully!

It's best to do it with a single audio track to keep everything focused along the way . . .

Since it works for the audio of a Solo Violin track, it generally works for everything; so if you have a lead guitar solo and want to see it in music notation, this is possible and practical; but it requires Melodyne Editor 5 rather than the Essential (Studio also does it) . . .

The key functionality is being to export from Melodyne as MIDI . . .

Depending on the complexity of a lead guitar solo, it might benefit from some adjusting once in Melodyne Editor 5, but generally it works . . .

It also works for recorded solo singing, where the key is to use a good but inexpensive studio-quality microphone and to sing clearly and distinctly . . .

From my perspective, this alone is worth getting Melodyne Editor 5; and while it's expensive if you do not have an earlier version to upgrade, if you can buy an earlier version of Melodyne Editor, then the upgrade to Melodyne Editor 5 is $99 (US) . . .

I have v2, and it qualified for the $99 upgrade . . .

SUMMARY

macOS Catalina 10.15.4 is working nicely for digital music production on the 2012 MacBook Pro . . .

I found a way to get a version of ScreenFlow from 2016 working in macOS Catalina . . .

]]>2020-06-03T12:28:15-06:002020-06-03T12:28:15-06:00https://forums.presonus.com/viewtopic.php?t=39825&p=233258#p233258Yes, indeed, multi-line staves are great consolidated ways to access the sounds. The reason I was thinking about going to 1 line was for cases where I wanted to control the dynamics of different instruments inside the patch -- so I'd need to load the patch multiple times -- and I thought having it on one line would be great for that.

I also experimented with the transposition in the dialog you pasted, and ended up finding that non-octave transpositions for whatever reason wasn't working for me.

SO I surrender on the point, and will just use multiple multiple line staves if I need to compose in this way

I have never, ever received a forum reply post of that length, quality, and diversity!

What you understood I wanted to do wasn't quite what I was hoping to do. I would like to have a single line staff, where that single line is whatever note I would like it to be. So if I want it to play a triangle that's on D4, I'd set the staff settings (or something) to say "you are D4" such that any notes right on that line send a D4 note event.

Thanks for the killer answer tho!

Cheers! - Steve

Glad you enjoyed it!

THOUGHTS

I learn best by doing research and experiments until I can write authoritatively . . .

10 years ago I knew nothing about NOTION and for the most part had no idea what a "virtual instrument" was . . .

Part of my learning strategy was to treat questions on the NOTION forum as if they were POP QUIZES . . .

It's not unusual for me to work on an answer for hours, and sometimes for days or longer . . .

I continue to do this 10 years later, and for what interests me, this is a productive strategy . . .

This puzzle is intriguing; and after doing a few more experiments, I was able to get it working for a SampleTank 3 triangle imported to SampleTank 4 . . .

The problem with specifying the note to be played when notated C is encountered is that all the notes are not choices . . .

C#, F#, and G# are not in the list . . .

There probably is a reason for this; but at present I have no idea what the reason might be . . .

I nearly never use single-line staves; and I try to avoid using grand staves unless it's for Realivos Blue (RealiTone), where keyswitches are used for various functions, hence are necessary . . .

Most of the time, I use treble staves . . .

VSTi virtual instrument drumkits and Latin percussion kits have a lot of different drums, cymbals, and so forth; so it's handy to have a 5-line staff when I decide to add another drum, cymbal, or Latin percussion instrument from the same kit, although most of the time it's one drum, cymbal, or Latin percussion instrument per staff; and sometimes I have three staves for the same single thing with one panned far-left, another panned top-center, and a third one panned far-right so I can put the single thing into motion . . .

If there were an easier way to do it, then I probably would do it the easier way; but I think using 5-line treble staves is the easiest and fastest way to do the music notation and the various arranging and producing activities . . .

Here in the sound isolation studio, there are perhaps 10 "C" notes on a grand piano . . .

Some are deep bass; some are middle octaves; and others are so high only bats, cats, dogs, dolphins, porpoises, sea turtles, and whales can hear them--certainly no human over the age of perhaps 5 years who has been to a KISS concert . . .

]]>2020-06-02T19:43:49-06:002020-06-02T19:43:49-06:00https://forums.presonus.com/viewtopic.php?t=39827&p=233184#p233184If you want a total package with all three main string instrument solos, then this is good value.

I have never, ever received a forum reply post of that length, quality, and diversity!

What you understood I wanted to do wasn't quite what I was hoping to do. I would like to have a single line staff, where that single line is whatever note I would like it to be. So if I want it to play a triangle that's on D4, I'd set the staff settings (or something) to say "you are D4" such that any notes right on that line send a D4 note event.

]]>2020-06-02T12:07:35-06:002020-06-02T12:07:35-06:00https://forums.presonus.com/viewtopic.php?t=39827&p=233150#p233150I like the crisp vibrato of the Solo Violin!

THOUGHTS

This Solo Violin is intriguing, because it's not so easy to find one that is light rather than heavy tonally and texturally . . .

I have been using a Gypsy Violin from EWQL ComposerCloud, but it's too heavy . . .

The problem with what I call "heavy" solo violins is that they nearly always are "deep and rich" tonally, which from an audio engineering and producing perspective tends to make them like an electric guitar, with the problem being than of all instruments the electric guitar is electromagnetically perfect for recording, which maps to being able to overwhelm everything--hence the audio engineering and producing problem . . .

If an electric guitar is not constrained ruthlessly, then it literally dominates a mix and overwhelms everything . . .

This "perfect" ability becomes a challenge when producing; and the solution requires devising a set of ways to make its sonic footprint small while allowing it to be "big" . . .

On the audio engineering side, this maps to fine-tuning its sonic space with a combination of brickwall equalizers, compressors, limiters, "ducking", and anything else that makes it a happy but not dominating instrument in the sense of overwhelming everything else . . .

For a different set of reasons, it's as difficult as managing human singing, which due to the dynamic range, pitch range, and so forth also can be overwhelming . . .

When recording a vocalist, what you want as a sound engineer is a vocalist whose voice is naturally matched to a condenser microphone in such a way that it's perfectly constrained to an unique sonic space, which before the advent of digital music production in some respects was the quality that determined which vocalists became hit recording artists , where one of the definitive vocalists in this regard is Frank Sinatra . . .

[NOTE: This is easier to understand when you listen with studio-quality headphones like SONY MDR-7506 headphones (a personal favorite), since they essentially are neutral. Pay attention to the high-frequency texture and reverberation, which combine to create something like an "aural exciter" in the modern universe. There's more to it, but the key bit of information is that Sinatra's singing voice was ideal for the technology available at the time . . . ]

]]>2020-06-02T01:45:22-06:002020-06-02T01:45:22-06:00https://forums.presonus.com/viewtopic.php?t=39825&p=233078#p233078steve@sctaylor.com wroteHello - I'm trying to load a VSTi which has a multi-percussion patch, and play one sound in it with a single-line staff. This patch has a triangle on a certain note. When I play a note right on the single line staff, it plays the B over middle C, which is not the triangle. Is there a way, *without* using custom rules, that I can set the note of that single-line staff?

Using Transpose in the staff settings doesn't seem to move the note, other than an octave at a time.

The workaround is to just put it on a grand staff and put notes only on the line(s) I care about, but that's rather space-hogging

Thanks for any tips! - Steve

If I understand what you want to do, then it's relatively easy . . .

THOUGHTS

As a bit of background, I was in a liturgical boys choir for several years, which is where I learned music notation and how to sight-sing soprano treble clef melodies . . .

In junior high school I decided to play string bass, but since only treble clef made sense to me, I played everything "by ear", which vastly annoyed the music teacher who played bassoon and eventually led to my being banned from the orchestra . . .

It didn't help that I enlisted the help of a drummer and clarinetist for purposes of ending everything with a few measures of "Walk Don't Run" (The Ventures) or a spontaneous burst of adolescent Jazz . . .

From that time until about 10 years ago, I did everything "by ear"--including playing bass, drums, electric guitar, and grand piano . . .

Being a eccentric fellow, who by that time wanted nothing to do with music teachers, I decided to teach myself how to play grand piano solely by a technique I call "Directed Dreaming", which basically maps to dreaming about playing grand piano without actually playing a grand piano . . .

This took about 20 years; and once I got a drumkit (about 10 years ago), I had an epiphany, which is that the keys on a grand piano are like tiny drums, cymbals, and Latin percussion instruments, at which time everything clicked and I soon was on my way to being able to play grand piano mindlessly as if in a dream in the style I later learned was similar to the Twelve Tone Technique developed by Arnold Schönberg nearly 100 years ago, which is similar to the work done by Josef Matthias Hauer a few years earlier . . .

[NOTE: This one grand piano part composed and played in real-time on the fly on a KORG Triton Workstation (88-weighted keys) using a preset that for some unknown reason generates synthesized fog. It sounds like a "Wall of Grand Piano" because I ran it through cascading echo units, which is a remarkably easy way to play more notes without doing anything . . . ]

The key to doing this is being comfortable suspending nearly all conscious judgment and letting the unconscious mind control the show for a while, which is based on the fact that the unconscious mind knows a lot more than the conscious mind . . .

And it's not just suspending nearly all conscious thinking . . .

It's also important to suspend real-time judgment, because there simply is not enough time to engage in logical thinking when you need to play several notes each second . . .

Instead, you play the notes and listen to the notes later after everything is recorded, at which time you can decide which notes sound "good" . . .

In retrospect, I probably should have been a drummer . . .

When I got my first drumkit, I made it a project in physics and ergonomics where the goal was to be able to play as much stuff as possible with as little physical effort imaginable, which included building my own drumsticks from 5/8" oak dowels, since nobody makes 22" drumsticks . . .

Along the way I quickly realized that drums, cymbals, and Latin percussion instruments are melodic . . .

The Really Bigger Drumkit

For reference, when I am playing real instruments I do everything in real-time on the fly based on something an audio engineer told me about Paul McCartney, which as I understood it was "McCartney does everything on the first or second take" . . .

I thought this was vastly amazing,; so I decided to do it, which at first was a bit terrifying since I thought there would a knock on the door by FBI Special Agents who were there to arrest me for not using sheet music or something; but that never happened, and I got over the initial terror and in fact embraced it vigorously . . .

In this regard, I am truly fearless . . .

The only problem, which I realized about 45 years later, is that the audio engineer actually was referring specifically to a few vocal harmony parts McCartney overdubbed for one song on the "R.A.M" album--not on everything . . .

As I discovered, like probably all the Beatles, McCartney would do takes of the same thing over-and-over nearly endlessly until it was perfect; but how was I to know?

On the good side, I am very skilled at it now . . .

HOW TO DO IT

Fast forward to the actual topic, and I made a YouTube video of what I think you want to do . . .

[NOTE: In this example, there are several percussion instruments; but it works the same way when there is just one percussion instrument . . . ]

(2) Depending on the octave where the percussion instruments you desire are located, you can adjust the treble staff to play notes one or two octaves lower or higher than notated, which for most VSTi virtual instrument drumkits will be one or two octaves lower, although it depends. You can do the transposing in NOTION Score Setup for the respective staff, and actually can do it for everything, thereby making it possible to do everything on treble staves.

(3) Place the notes on the treble staff the way you want them played (durations, syncopations via tuplets, and so forth).

(4) Save the NOTION score.

(5) Switch to NOTION Score Setup and change the staff to a single-line staff.

(6) Now the notes kind of hover above and below a single line.

(7) Select all the notes on the respective single-line percussion staff and change them to Rhythm Slashes, which is an option on the context menu (right-click with the mouse to get to the context menu).

I like percussion instruments; and the reason I started using NOTION in 2010 was to do a Flamenco song with a drum part that was beyond my abilities to play . . .

[NOTE: Most of the song has a standard Bulería rhythm; but the Interlude is a custom 36-beat Flamenco rhythm. I have lyrics, and when I get around to doing the music video, I plan to do an interpretive mime rendition of the Mayan Story of the Creation of the World wearing tights, an impressive codpiece, fuzzy bunny slippers, a Venetian mask, and an Elvis Presley pompadour wig while juggling unshucked ears of corn, hence the extended Interlude . . . ]

One instrument plays on every "1"; another instrument plays on every "2"; and so forth . . ,

When I have an actual musical group, one of the first things I do is have everyone sit around a table and do this experiment . . .

It appears to be easy until you actually do it . . ,

Even trained musicians tend to lose their counts, which is hilarious , . .

It's a good exercise for focusing on what you are supposed to be doing rather than listening to what everyone else is doing . . .

This is the current version of one of my projects in this forum which demonstrates how to compose a song with an easy set of SoMC rules, where everything is determined by a small set of single-digit integer numbers (rhythm pattern, scales, melodies, bass, harmonies, counterpoint, and so forth) . . .

[NOTE: George Gershwin was a student of Joseph Schillinger for a while; and my perspective is that "An American in Paris" started with a grand total of four single-digit integers as explained in the following topic in this forum . . . ]

Regarding drumkits and Latin percussion instruments, as well as everything actually, I like to be able to control everything when I am in producer mode; and the best way to do this is to put every instrument on a separate treble staff, which for certain instruments maps to having three staves--one panned far-let; one panned top-center; and one panned far-right, which is what I do for kick drums and snare drum rimshots, as well as a few Latin percussion instruments, which you can hear in "Sweet Hour of Prayer" when you listen with studio-quality headphones and focus on the maracas and tambourines, which are there to keep the attention of younger listeners captured constantly, since as a general rule they have attention spans measured in seconds and need to be focused frequently by apparently random noises, whistles, bells, and so forth . . .

]]>2020-06-02T19:46:59-06:002020-06-01T22:37:15-06:00https://forums.presonus.com/viewtopic.php?t=39827&p=233068#p233068https://www.orchestraltools.com/store/home from Orchestral Tools. Their products are first rate, and this library to me represents exceptional value. It's on intro sale at the moment for about US$100. It also works with Notion quite well. I spent a few hours and wrote rulesets for all the instruments. This recording is made directly from Notion, with just a little reverb added for room tail. Otherwise there's no EQ or other sound manipulation. I like the immediacy and intimate sound of the strings. There are a number of different mic settings and a pretty comprehensive list of articulations and techniques.

Let me know what you think!

Ed. note: I realized that I made a mistake in this first recording, which is OK, but I need to revise the score so that the instruments don't use the legato articulations for double stops. They don't work, which creates a sort of hiccup on some notes. Easy to fix in Notion, though! I just eliminate the slurs, and the ruleset will play non-legato articulations!

Ed. Note: Take 2 posted to fix some issues. Always good to listen after a night's sleep!

]]>2020-06-01T19:30:32-06:002020-06-01T19:30:32-06:00https://forums.presonus.com/viewtopic.php?t=39825&p=233057#p233057Using Transpose in the staff settings doesn't seem to move the note, other than an octave at a time.

The workaround is to just put it on a grand staff and put notes only on the line(s) I care about, but that's rather space-hogging

]]>2020-06-01T18:34:48-06:002020-06-01T18:34:48-06:00https://forums.presonus.com/viewtopic.php?t=39736&p=233055#p233055This is the new version of the J. S. Bach fugue . . .

THOUGHTS

I solved the ScreenFlow (Telestream) problem by reverting to ScreenFlow 6.2.4 (2016), which is so completely and totally logical it defies conventional reason. When the new version doesn't work in the new operating system, revert to the old version that was written four years ago for a different operating system . . .

"Yeah, that makes super fabulous sense."

Said nobody . . .

After listening to the previous rendition, I decided it was not so easy to hear the solo cello and baritone celli; so I increased their respective volume levels; and I adjusted the volume levels of the solo violin and Gypsi violin . . .

]]>2020-06-01T03:28:34-06:002020-06-01T03:28:34-06:00https://forums.presonus.com/viewtopic.php?t=39812&p=232996#p232996To say that this program is labour intensive and clunky is being kind, Notion 6 is a 'writing' program - 'so what?' you might say, but where's the editing? I don't want to write all the time, and I certainly don't want to re-write all the time!Here's an example, and, yes, you've guessed it - I'm a drummer! When first opening this program I also opened up superior drummer 3, I played an extremely simple, 1 bar groove in loop, and send it to Notion - viola, drum notation. But then the problems started:- 1) I foolishly tried (for about 4 hours) to stem the bass drums down, no joy2) Then I tried to select a different voice for said bds (like you can in Sibelius) no joy3) Then I lost a day of my life looking for drum mapping, no joy4) Then I lost another day of my life trying to figure out how to highlight/select the uppermost notes (hi-hats) to change the note heads, no joy (admittedly, they are easy to change via key command, but still, drummers like to select things...)5) And then the piece de resistance, I actually deleted the bd on beat two (mistakenly thinking that changing a 'four on the floor' drum pattern to a 'two on the floor' pattern would be quick and painless (like it is in Sibelius), only to find that those kind guys at Notion assume I don't really want to delete THAT note, so they put it back in and deleted bd 4 instead (yes, I know this is a result of everything being 'shifted' to the left, what I don't know is WHY????)6) Then, after a further two days, I tried to overwrite notes with others of different value, thinking that the software would recalculate and adjust rests accordingly (like Sibelius would) - only to find those sweet guys at Notion now think I want to be in 'five four', and I actually want to waste some more of my time deleting pretty, burgundy notes from my, now, one and half bar pattern? Surely, it shouldn't take a 'journeyman' drummer/teacher such as myself to point out to you guys that drum notating is 30% writing, 70% editing?

I could go on but, seriously, my head hurts, thanks to the literal 'battle' with this brilliantly overthought, academically obtuse software - it's as if Alan Turing did the coding, on his days off at Bletchley Park, and, to labour the analogy, I feel like I have been attempting to crack an 'Enigma' machine, with zero success.

You may think I'm being harshly sarcastic but I REALLY wanted to love this software, and I really wanted to USE it, to 'play in' and write 'killer' drum parts - sadly, this is not the notation software for me, (nor would I humbly suggest, for many contemporary drum notators?) It seems that this software is squarely aimed at 'composers', and is the ultimate piece of kit if you want to re-work 'Stravinsky', how ironic then, that, after a week, I couldn't figure out how to quickly and efficiently end up with a straight eighth drum chart? Add to that, the fact that, in my many hours of research I came across a similar, forum request, for a key command to independently stem drum voices up or down, that was from over EIGHT years ago - and it tells me all I need to know. Now, where's that Sibelius manual?..

]]>2020-05-31T16:26:31-06:002020-05-31T16:26:31-06:00https://forums.presonus.com/viewtopic.php?t=39736&p=232968#p232968michaelmyers1 wroteSurf, this piece is by Bach, not Mozart. It's the second movement (Ricercata) of the Fugue from his "Musical Offering," BWV 1079/5.

Thanks for the clarification and information!

THOUGHTS

I'm not certain where I got the idea it was a Mozart piece . . .

It doesn't sound like Mozart; but it wasn't something I recalled hearing, so I went with Mozart even though it's way too dark and foreboding . . .

And it does tend to go on-and-on nearly endlessly; but as you noted there is a bit of geometrical logic to it, which is nice . . .

michaelmyers1 wroteKnowing your work here, if you aren't familiar with Fugues, I think you would enjoy the form.

A few years ago I recall writing a post in a guitar forum where I suggested that one only needs 16 to 32 measures of chords and a simple melody to create a symphony by doing the ABBA thing; copying and pasting; and adding a few more alphabet characters (mostly "C" and "I", the always productive "chorus" and "Interlude") . . .

Here in the sound isolation studio it's {Verse, Chorus,, Bridge, Iterlude}, which is the pattern for every popular song ever written, with the exception of a few stellar Roy Orbison songs which might be fugues and was something he could do because he had a mind-boggling vocal range . . .

Lately, I have been making it a bit more difficult on myself; and some of the songs have taken months to fit into a sufficiently complex pattern, which makes writing the lyrics geometrically more difficult, but so what . . .

The other side of the coin is the fast part for my rendition of "Sweet Hour of Prayer", where no melody appeared, so I just sang it monotone similar to the way John Lennon did the melody for "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds", with a few simple scalar phrases here and there . . .

On a curiously related note, someone asked if there was an easy ways to compose songs when you have zero ideas, to which I replied one way is to start with a song you like and then to write a silly parody where all you do for the most part is rephrase the lyrics while using the same chord pattern . . .

The example I used was based on "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" (Beatles); and while initially it was beyond silly, after a while I started liking the idea and completed it . . .

[NOTE: Instead of LSD, the theme is absinthe-based, and the tag has the same cadence as the Beatles song. Think "Lucy in the sky with, Lucy in the sky with, Lucy in the sky with diamonds" combined with a few bits from "Not Myself Tonight" (Christina Aguilera), since at the time I was having a bit of FUN doing parodies of songs I liked but were way too naughty, where the general idea is to avoid having original ideas . . . ]

]]>2020-05-31T13:54:13-06:002020-05-31T13:54:13-06:00https://forums.presonus.com/viewtopic.php?t=39736&p=232949#p232949robertspear1 wroteWhen I want to write the cellos or violins into high positions, Notion will only let me go about two ledger lines above the staff before placing the notes on the staff above. I then have to enter the note below my desired position and move it up in a separate series of keystrokes. Kinda clunky, but it does get the job done. I'm sure there must be a better way of doing this.

Bob, this is true, it's clunky but it has to do with how much space Notion assigns between staves. No getting around it as far as I know.

]]>2020-05-31T18:13:27-06:002020-05-31T13:50:41-06:00https://forums.presonus.com/viewtopic.php?t=39736&p=232948#p232948Knowing your work here, if you aren't familiar with Fugues, I think you would enjoy the form. It seems at first quite simple (start a line that then is joined by the same line a fourth below or a fifth above the original), yet once you try it you soon find it nearly impossible to keep the thing going. It's said that Bach could sit at his well-tempered clavier and extemporize Fugues of 20 minutes or more out of thin air.

The tempo sounds fine to me, you might like to listen to this arrangement by Anton Webern, about the same tempo. Webern uses the German composition technique popular at the time he wrote this (1934-35) where the motif is passed from one instrument or section to another. Webern's intent was to bring out the motifs of the music and make them more comprehensible to the listener, bring the music closer to the audience. He got a lot of grief for it at the time, since it wasn't "pure" and was an interpretation of the old German Master. Imagine the political position he put himself in by taking liberties with Bach in newly-Nazi Austria. By 1940, Webern had no income. The piece here wasn't published until 1955, 20 years after he wrote it.

After listening to it a few times with native NOTION instruments, I decided to see how it sounds with EWQL virtual instruments from ComposerCloud, which is a new addition to the virtual instrument library here in the sound isolation studio . . .

While my replacement Mac Pro (Early 2008) is being shipped, I am using a MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch, Late 2012); so I had to load a bunch of digital music production software (virtual instruments and effects plug-ins, along with ScreenFlow [Telestream]), which took a while, as did downloading several of the EWQL instruments and sampled-sound libraries . . .

ScreenFlos does not appear to like macOS Catalina; so devising a workaround took a few hours; and the broadband cable stopped working for a few hours which essentially makes it impossible to do much of anything because the various software licenses require web connectivity . . .

[NOTE: I used to hate USB security dongles, but now I am starting to like them . . . ]

I started doing the EWQL version in NOTION, but with ScreenFlow not capturing the audio I switched to the "ReWire MIDI Strategy", which took another hour or so . . .

ScreenFlow doesn't capture sound from Studio One Professional and, apparently, a few other Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) applications; hence the strategy to export the audio (a.k.a. "Mixdown") from Studio One Professional and then to use it as the audio for the ScreenFlow video capture . . .

All told, this took about 18 hours, which is fine with me . . .

About half the time was focused on downloading software, sampled-sound libraries, and activating licenses . . .

Some of the IK Multimedia software does not work in macOS Catalina; but T-RackS 5 Custom Shop works, hence my "goto" effects plug-ins work; and the FabFilter Software Instruments effects plug-ins work; so everything is good . .

After studying the NOTION score, I removed all the dynamic marks, which makes it easier for me to control dynamics and all that stuff via effects plug-ins . . .

[NOTE: My general perspective is based on a few technical observations, one of which is that dynamic marks in NOTION music notation do not do what nearly everyone thinks they do. NOTION generates MIDI based on music notation, and instead of the sampled sounds actually being played in specific dynamics, what happens is that the MIDI value for the volume is changed, which mostly adds clicks and pops rather than doing something useful; so I do not use dynamic marks in NOTION . . . ]

Once I switched the native NOTON instruments to EWQL instruments, it became obvious that NOTION was overloaded, hence the reason to switch to using ReWire MIDI staves in NOTION and hosting the EWQL instruments in Studio One Professional, which does two things:

(1) It focuses NOTION on doing what it needs to do, which is to generate MIDI from music notation--this MIDI in turn being used by Studio One Professional to control the VSTi virtual engines (EWQL Play in this instance) . . .

(2) It focuses Studio One Professional on what it needs to do, which is handling the audio, effects plug-ins, producing, mixing and recording . . .

The EWQL VSTi virtual Instrument ("Play") works very nicely in Studio One Professional and has all the required busing and routing functionality required in the "ReWire MIDI Strategy" . . .

I tend to like legato, vibrato, slurs, and portamento (which apparently is another type of slur), so these are the types of instruments I selected from a rather vast assortment in EWQL . . .

One of my arranging, producing, and mixing rules is that everything tends to ride on bass; so I added a Höfner Beatle Bass to double the bowed contrabass . . .

I added a Gypsy violin to double the solo violin; and to add texture to the viola and to make it easier to hear distinctly, I added a Beatles lead guitar run through an Ace Frehley (KISS) guitar rig via Amplitube, which is a bit wacky but it works . . .

[NOTE: This is mixed with studio-quality headphones (SONY MDR-7506, a personal favorite); so it's best enjoyed when listening with headphones or earbuds. For reference, I did not alter the EWQL instrument panning, since I like the way it places the instruments in the sonic landscape, although I did enhance a few instruments with Timeless 2 (FabFilter Software Instruments) echoes and ambience. One of the overall goals is that it should be easy to watch the music notation and identify what the various instruments are doing. If you can't hear it, then here in the sound isolation studio it's noise and doesn't need to be there . . . ]

I found the "problem" is that Notion gets stingy with active click areas when you go above a staff. I was able to move the line easily between any of the others on the score, but failed whenever I tried to put it above the top line. The "secret" is to put the mouse pointer just above the staff, and then the move occurs smoothly.

I have noticed this during note entry and should have made the connection. When I want to write the cellos or violins into high positions, Notion will only let me go about two ledger lines above the staff before placing the notes on the staff above. I then have to enter the note below my desired position and move it up in a separate series of keystrokes. Kinda clunky, but it does get the job done. I'm sure there must be a better way of doing this.

I much appreciate your help, especially since you do a lot of writing for classical strings. I do, too, and worse! If you are interested to see and hear the instruments for which the Bach was arranged, you can do that here;

3. Click on the staff again and drag (without releasing) to the place you want to move it to (hover over the space in between staves). The new position will turn orange and a little + sign will appear in the middle of the staff.

When it's working, it runs everything--all the current digital music production software I use . . .

SwitchBack wroteA fast way to at least get going again is to put the old Mac’s drives in external usb (or firewire) drive bays and then boot the new Mac from the old boot drive. Works like a charm.

Yes! I already have one of these--unopened in the original packing--and it's one of the strategies . . .

The one I have now is USB-only, but OWC has an external drive bay that has USB and FireWire . . .

SwitchBack wroteNext I would look at Migration Assistant (native app) for transferring old to new.

My thinking is that since the replacement Mac Pro (Early 2008) is the same processor and video card configuration, I should be able to pull the internal drive bays from the non-working Mac Pro (Early 2008) and to put them in the replacement unit without needing to do much of anything other perhaps than updating some of the software activations, although that depends on the way the new machine is identified for security licensing purposes . . .

Some of my software has USB security dongles, so that part is easy--just move the USB security dongles from the old machine to the replacement machine (iLOK and one for Reason [Reason Studios]) . . .

There are different ways software licensing systems identify computers; and ideally it will be the type that doesn't use hard drive IDs, processor IDs, and stuff like that . . .

Some of them just generate a GUID (Globally Unique Identifier) without all the hardware footprints, but it depends . . .

I have more activations available, so I think this part will be good . . .

SwitchBack wrote. . . didn’t those Macs use only up to 6GB of RAM? I don’t think putting in more does any good. Or was that only the 2008 MBPs?

32GB is normal as an option, but OWC has 64GB system memory for the Mac Pro (Early 2008, Model 3,1) . . .

32GB is plenty of system memory . . .

Kontakt (Native Instruments) has its own memory manager, so it can use more system memory; but everything else doesn't benefit much from more than 16GB of system memory . . .

From what I have observed, most digital music production software is what I loosely call "single-threaded" in the sense that it's linear rather than parallel . . .

There is multiprogramming but more in the sense of the operating system being able to multiprogram a few applications--and itself, of course . . .

Parallel processing requires too much software engineering, so it's typically used only for video processing applications where it makes a significant difference when rendering video files . . .

It's a matter of the time frame for audio generating, which is very short when the goal is to hear music in real-time . . .

Everything needs to happen very rapidly, which is different from rendering video files offline . . .

These songs are examples of what the old Mac Pro (Early 2008) was doing; and it's all I need to do at present . . .

For reference, these are produced primarily for studio-quality headphone listening, since I like to have a lot of motion-based effects in songs . . .

I do primary mixing when listening to the music played through calibrated full-range studio monitors, but then I switch to SONY MDR-7506 headphones to fine-tunie for headphone listeners .. . .

[NOTE: This is done with Studio One Professional and NOTION using what i call the "ReWire MIDI Strategy", and it has approximately 100 VSTI virtual instruments and Realivox Blue [RealiTone], my favorite virtual female soprano, along with a few tracks of my singing and being Pretend Johnny Cash . . . ]

[NOTE: This was done with Digital Performer [MOTU} and NOTION using a combination of NOTION-hosted VSTi virtual instruments and External MIDI sent from NOTION to Digital Performer, as well as Realivox Blue and a few tracks of my singing for a similar number of total tracks, with everything being virtual except my singing . . . ]

Since I do everything myself, the strategy I use for composing songs is based on layering, where I build the song in layers . . .

Each time I creae a new layer, I do "Save As . . . " with layer identifiers, so I can go backward and revisit a layer if necessary, although it's vastly easier always to go forward . . .

Yet there are times when it makes sense to add another verse or something, and this requires going backward and doing some copying and pasting, like in "Feel Me" when I decided to another another verse . . .

[NOTE: This has real electric guitar, since it's easy to do the glissandi and whammying on a real electric guitar; but everything else is virtual done in NOTION and Digital Performer, except my singing, of course. It's a great song and easy to sing. Someone famous should record it and send me a lot of money. It's inspired sarcastically by "Who Owns My Heart" (Miley Cyrus), because she "stole" my idea for wearing a Venetian mask in a video . . . ]

]]>2020-05-29T12:51:24-06:002020-05-29T12:51:24-06:00https://forums.presonus.com/viewtopic.php?t=39754&p=232699#p232699A fast way to at least get going again is to put the old Mac’s drives in external usb (or firewire) drive bays and then boot the new Mac from the old boot drive. Works like a charm.

Next I would look at Migration Assistant (native app) for transferring old to new.

Also search the internet for patched versions of MacOS releases newer than El Capitan. Depending on the secondary video processor chip in that ‘new’ Mac you may even get Mojave to run on it (if you wanted to).

Oh, and didn’t those Macs use only up to 6GB of RAM? I don’t think putting in more does any good. Or was that only the 2008 MBPs?

]]>2020-05-29T10:58:59-06:002020-05-29T10:58:59-06:00https://forums.presonus.com/viewtopic.php?t=39754&p=232685#p232685One might suggest it was inevitable that the Mac Pro (Early 2008) here in the sound isolation studio would stop working . . .

THOUGHTS

The Mac Pro (Early 2008) here in the sound isolation studio stopped working about a few days ago, and none of the usual remedies worked . . .

It gets past the initial boot "chime" and then the screen goes white and nothing else happens . . .

All that comes to mind are (a) blasting the inside with pressurized air (perhaps a naughty bit of dust somewhere) and (b) removing and reinstalling the system memory and video card (ATI Radeon HD 5770 1024MB); but I'm not certain it will do anything . . .

There are four internal hard drives, and it's likely all of them are working with no problems . . .

It's always good to have contingency plans; and in this instance the contingency plan is to get another Mac Pro (Early 2008) with the same primary specifications, which is what I did yesterday for $476 (US) on eBay, including FedEx Ground shipping and sales tax . . .

The replacement Mac Pro (Early 2008) has 12GB of system memory, but I don't care about it so much, (a) because I have at least one memory card with 16GB that is working and perhaps a second one; but regardless, system memory is not expensive . . .

Same thing for the replacement internal hard drive and SSD drive--nice, although the SSD drive is intriguing . . .

And I plan to get a new internal hard drive to do a full-backup with SuperDuper! (Shirt Pocket) once everything is working . . .

My thinking is that I can put the old hard drives in the new Mac Pro (Early 2008) and be mostly back in business--other than perhaps needing to reactivate some digital music production software . . .

Then I will work on determining what is not working on the old one . . .

If it costs $750 (US) for all the hardware, then that's reasonable for a supercomputer, even one that's 12 years-old and only runs macOS El Capitan but nothing higher . . .

For reference, there were some units with the same processors (dual 2.8-GHz 4-Core XEON), but this one has the better video card and a 250GB SSD drive, hence is more attractive overall . . .

I think this strategy will work; and if it does then I'm happy with it . . .

Last year, one of the studio monitors exploded and burst into flames during a thunderstorm; so I'm replacing it, as well . . .

It's nice to have spares . . .

When all that stuff is working, I plan to complete the chapters on (a) busing and routing and (b) ReWire MIDI strategy for my new book on digital music production, which might be finished and released this year . . .

After pondering it for a while and having an epiphany or two, I think "busing and routing" is one of the keys to digital music production; and it's not something people typically include in technical books . . .

Doing a bit of "practicing", folks who started doing music decades ago usually know at least something about busing and routing, if only how to connect an electric guitar to an amplifier and how to connect a microphone to a PA system . . .

MIDI adds a layer, but keyboard folks usually know now to work with MIDI cables and all that stuff--although I had to take some online courses from Groove3 and macProVideo to make sense of MIDI . . .

In the digital music production universe, it's mostly virtual cables--unless you play an old-school MIDI keyboard and electric guitar--so for most folks there are no analog and MIDI components to make everything real and tangible, hence it's conceptually confusing . . .

Real or virtual, these are just cables that connect one thing to another thing--ins, outs, sends, returns, buses, ports, channels, and all that stuff . . .

When you understand busing and routing, it becomes possible and practical to do everything, which certainly is a worthy goal . . .

]]>2020-05-29T06:02:23-06:002020-05-29T06:02:23-06:00https://forums.presonus.com/viewtopic.php?t=39736&p=232655#p232655I'm not sure if I grabbed the staff correctly. I was able to get it to turn all grey or all blue, but when I clicked on the "+" sign in the orange bar (yes, I am using the desktop version), the selection color turned off and repositioning the orange bar didn't do anything.

I'm going to make a newbie's stab at uploading the file in all its gory . . . oops!, I mean, "glory", of course. Not sure if it will make the trip, but if you don't mind curdling your coffee, would you mind taking a look at it to see if it will listen to you?

No biggie, otherwise. I still have the original XML file and I could take another whack at this from the beginning.

]]>2020-05-28T21:36:03-06:002020-05-28T21:36:03-06:00https://forums.presonus.com/viewtopic.php?t=39736&p=232639#p232639Easy fix is to go to Score Setup, grab a staff and then drag it to the correct location as indicated by the orange highlight and a little + sign in the middle of the staff (assuming that you're using the desktop version).